Impulsive buying, cultural values dimensions, and symbolic meaning of money: A study on college students in Indonesia’s capital city and its surrounding

Impulsive buying is an interesting research topic for psychologists and economists for its practical implications in the daily lives of producers, marketers and consumers in the trading world. The topic is also relevant to both micro and macro economy field of studies. There have been abundance explanations for impulsive buying social phenomenon provided, but the cultural factors points of view are rarely studied empirically. This research showed its original contribution to the body of knowledge of buying impulsiveness since it includes the Hofstede’s cultural dimensions on individual level in its research model. In addition, the research employed the symbolic meaning of money for predictor variable of impulse buying. There were 200 Indonesian students participated in this research (91 males, 109 females) and they went to seven campuses located in Jakarta and its surrounding areas. The multiple linear regression analysis showed that that power distance belief, collectivism, and symbolic meaning of money all together positively related to impulsive buying. The uncertainty avoidance cultural dimension and impulsive buying are negatively correlated. It has been expected that this research will be much beneficial for all stakeholders. They can manage the perception of culture and symbolic meanings of money in order to lever, improve or decrease impulsive buying according to whatever the stakeholder’s goal is. Discussion and suggestions for further similar research are elaborated in the last section of this report.